The website aim is to provide content needed for clearing these exams free of cost to your very desktop
Between 2013 and 2016, Pranav Nerurkar attempted the UPSC Civil Service examinations four times. Instead of attempting it for the fifth time, he started UPSC Fever, a website that provides free study material to students appearing for around 13 competitive exams, including UPSC, MPSC, IBPS, SBI, SSC, UGC, NET, SET. "While I prepared from Mumbai, most of my fellow candidates preferred going to Delhi or Hyderabad, because these were the popular study centres. They spent a lot of time and money travelling, so I thought of using my preparatory experience to start UPSC Fever," says the 25-year old. He promises study material for Railways, EPF and TET soon.
The purpose for the website was "to create more awareness about Central and State government exams in Maharashtra. In Mumbai and Maharashtra, people start preparing for these exams only when they finish graduation, whereas in north India they start training after Class 12. Their success rate and contribution in the government services is therefore much higher."
Nerurkar, who started the website with his friend Amit Gadre*, wants to help candidates as "these are ruthlessly competitive exams. There are approximately 50 lakh candidates and the numbers have doubled in the last five years. Students in urban areas can afford coaching classes, have mentors and can study in groups, but those in rural areas have limited access to study material and have to support themselves financially too. We would like to offer our resources for free to organizations that work to educate the underprivileged," shares Nerurkar, who also conducts seminars in different colleges around Mumbai to create more awareness.
Nerurkar updates the material on the website everyday. "Current affairs in an important part of the syllabus," he says, "so we have to update our content regularly after going through several newspapers. When the results are announced, we add tips from toppers' interviews." To ensure there are no copyright issues for students, Nerurkar goes through several books and makes his own notes, which he uploads online. Armed with a Bachelor's in IT and a Master's in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Mumbai, he is now pursuing a PhD in Big Data Analytics at the Department of Computer Engineering, VJTI College, in Matunga. He focuses on his PhD from 9 am to 6 pm everyday and works on the website from 6 pm to 11 pm.
Gadre, who has a Master's in Computer Engineering and works as a researcher with an IT firm, looks after the technical part. "I'm working on how we can earn revenue from the website, perhaps through advertisements, while still providing free content. To get advertisers' approval, the website needs to be live for six months; we've been live for four months," says 25-year-old Gadre, who is also working on the UPSC Fever Android app. Another friend helps them out as a consultant.
Initially, Nerurkar wanted to start off with a YouTube channel, but after making a few videos thought a website would work better, especially for candidates from rural areas, where the internet connectivity may not be the best. Having prepared their content for approximately three years, they started creating the website in May 2016, but launched in September. They also launched their YouTube channel on December 25 and are now working on getting interactions with more colleges and making the website link available on college websites. "We plan to approach the University of Mumbai; they have an academy of administrative careers where they shortlist candidates based on an entrance exam and train them for these competitive exams. Since they can train only a limited number of students, we're hoping our website will be the solution to these constraints," says Nerurkar. While as of now, only "10% of our content is available in Hindi, soon the site will be available in both languages. We don't have anyone to help us translate everything into Marathi yet, but question papers and solutions are available in all three languages," says the Dahisar resident.
*Name changed on request
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